History See Timeline page for a chronological list of events from Warrington's past. Veratinum, Woeringtun, Walintune, Werynton, Weryngton, Wherington, Werinton, Warington Don't panic Mister Mainwaring, my computer hasn't flipped! These are simply old variant spellings of Warrington. Warrington is an industrial town in the north west of England with a population of 202,228 (2011 Census, 191,084 in the 2001 Census). It is situated on the River Mersey mid-way between Liverpool and Manchester. Its historical setting is in the county of Lancashire, but administrative changes by the government in 1974 meant that Warrington came under Cheshire County Council. Warrington became a Unitary Authority on 1 April, 1998. But the boundaries themselves haven't changed. The town is still in Lancashire. So although I was born in Lancashire in the 1960s, and haven't moved out of town, my mailing address is now Cheshire!

The name Warrington comes from the word "werid" meaning ford, "ford town", the town on the ford.* The Romans called their settlement at Wilderspool Veratinum when they moved to the area in about AD 79, although there is no absolute evidence for this name. They left in about AD 410. The Anglo-Saxons moved in after the Romans. The town is called WALINTUNE in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Mark Olly in his book, Celtic Warrington and Other Mysteries (Book 2) (Churnet Valley Books) says that Walintune is made up of three Old English words: WALH, WEALD OR WAL(L) - "Welshman, Briton, foreigner, serf or slave" IEG or EG - "Island, peninsula, dry area in a fen, well-watered land" TUNE or TUN - "enclosure, enclosed dwelling, farmstead, hamlet, village, estate and manor". But there are also other theories on the Warrington name.

"Waer" is the personal name of a local ruler or chieftain, combined with "tun" a homestead or settlement. This then gives "Waerstun" or Waer's settlement. Another theory is based on the Anglo-Saxon word "Waering" meaning a weir or dam. "Waering" combined with "tun" gives us "Waeringtun", the settlement of the weirs on the river. But according to information I was given in connection with my show on in 2012, there is another theory - connected to the Vikings. You can read more at . In particular we have "Vǫrr-ing-tun" "Place to moor the boats". *Please note that I am no expert in language or word origins and present these theories for reference (and there may be others). Many people still hold Warrington as belonging to Lancashire - and as some say, you can take Warrington out of Lancashire if you like but you'll never take the Warrington-born Lancashire folk out of Warrington. And there's nothing to stop you putting Warrington, Lancashire on your return address, as long as you use the post code.

A good website for keeping the original Lancashire intact is The Friends of Real Lancashire ( Another website you might find useful on the subject is The Association of British Counties . For a short period of time, the word 'Lancashire' was added to the sign above, but later removed. Photo taken December 2011. Having said all that, this website concentrates on events that happen within those extended 1974 boundary changes. The local press often feature stories about Daresbury and Lewis Carroll, but Daresbury is administered by Halton Council, not Warrington - and that is why Lewis Carroll is not featured in Warrington People , even though he often visited Walton Hall estate and the Greenall family. The same goes for Moore village: it is outside the boundary of Warrington, but Moore Nature Reserve is within it, and therefore featured in Warrington Green . If the boundaries ever changed again I will reflect those changes on this website. Warrington townsfolk are known as "Warringtonians". The first crossing point of the River Mersey was at Latchford, by way of a ford. See On The Waterfront for more.

For centuries it was the only point west of Stretford, now in Greater Manchester, where a bridge could be built over the Mersey. Several pub names in Warrington had a connection with the waterways - The Ship, the Mermaid and the Packet House Inn; the latter is said to be the ticket office for boats travelling from here to Liverpool, located on the corner of Bridge Street and Mersey Street. By 1310, the Eighth Earl of Warrington, Sir William Fitz Henry le Boteler was empowered to collect tolls on Warrington Bridge, which lasted until the 16th century. The town has existed from early Celtic times. Local author and TV presenter Mark Olly has written a series of books about the Celtic history of the town. It has also had a Roman presence with many finds coming from the Wilderspool area in the south of the town. The Winwick Pig: an old tale of how Winwick was named comes in this wonderful story. Kind Oswald, King of Northumbria, was killed here in battle in AD 642, and many tales were told in his honour.

Travellers would stop by and pay their respects and the spot was cared for by the elders of the village. There was a large stone placed nearby which many bowed down to. It was decided to erect a church in honour of the great king, and so the plans were marked out on the ground. As it was being constructed nobody noticed a pig wandering around the site. Stone and timber were gathered for the construction and the pig went about its day hunting for food. At the end of the day the workers went home, but next day they noticed something had changed. Overnight it was reported that the pig was seen moving stones from the original site of Winwick church to its current site, crying We-ee-wick, We-ee-wick as it ran, hence Weewick, Winwick. The nearest city to Warrington isn't Liverpool, or Manchester. It was the Saxon ruler King Edward the Elder who 'In the year 923...founded a cyty here and called it Thelwall'. He garrisoned and fortified Thelwall to secure his Saxon subjects here in order to repel the encroachments of the Northmen and others.

The historic market and industrial town of Warrington stands on the border of modern day Lancashire and Cheshire. In the ninth century this area was the border between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia. The river which flows through Warrington was called the Merse (click here and here for references to land between the rivers Ribble and the "Merse" in the county of Lancaster). The river's name comes from the Anglo-Saxon Maeres-ea meaning "border river". Today we call it the Mersey. An entry in the Domesday Book of AD 1086 begins "In Walintune Hundred King Edward held Walintune with three berewicks". The manors of Warrington were given to Peganus de Vilars, later created first Baron or Lord of Warrington in the 12th century. He died in 1156 and was succeeded by his son Matthew. Descendants of the first Baron, through their status of butler to the earl of Chester, adopted the name Le Boteleur, later Boteler (see Boteler Household section below).

They continued to reside in the castle at Mote Hill behind the Parish Church of St Elphin on Church Street until it was destroyed by fire in 1260. By 1255, Warrington was given a Royal Charter to hold an annual three day fair. See Warrington Market page for a more detailed history. As the only crossing point into Lancashire from the south (or into Cheshire from the north), the bridge at Bridge Foot was a central theme in the development of the town. Oliver Cromwell stayed here at what eventually became the General Wolfe pub on Church Street, the centre of town in those days. The Earl of Derby based himself here in the 1640s and built up a Royalist force to fight from here. Later, Warrington, the market town, and Latchford became major centres in the industrial revolution.

Traditional industries include iron making (Dallam Forge), steel (British Steel, Lancashire Steel), copper-smelting, file making (Peter Stubs), soap (Lever Brothers, makers of Persil from 1909), glass making, tanning (check out Tanners Lane in the centre of town), pin making (Pinners Brow), cotton (Cockhedge Mill), sugar refining (near to the site of Warrington's bus station), sail-cloth, fustian cutting, brewing (Greenall Whitley, Tetley Walker, Burtonwood Ales, The Coach House Brewing Company ), clock and watchmaking (James Carter 1780-1848 and John Kay), shipbuilding and wire manufacturing (Greenings, Rylands), to name just a few. The former Rylands factory on Church Street was originally a cotton mill. One of the most influential people in the town's history was Thomas Patten, a merchant and industrialist, who was instrumental in making the River Mersey navigable from Runcorn to Bank Quay in the late 17th century to support his copper-smelting factory.

His home, Bank Hall, was designed by James Gibbs and built in 1750. It is now our town hall, having been purchased from Colonel John Wilson Patten (later Lord Winmarleigh) in 1872. The St Helens Canal, also known as the Sankey Canal, was the first commercial canal of the Industrial Revolution in England and opened in 1757. In 2007 it celebrated its first quarter-millennium. One of its main cargoes was sugar from Liverpool Docks to Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown. Check out the Sankey Canal Restoration Society website . Some say the Bridgewater Canal flowing through south Warrington, which opened in 1761, was the first 'true' modern canal because it was a new waterway constructed independently of any existing watercourse except for the water supply, said to be the definition of a canal in one book I read. As the St Helens Canal was originally designed to make the Sankey Brook navigable, they say the Sankey was not the first. But the Sankey Canal people decided to build a totally separate channel of water alongside the Sankey Brook, so the reader must make their own mind up.

I could throw a spanner in the works of both camps and say that the Romans built the Foss Dyke in Lincolnshire for drainage and navigation around AD 50... Education was, and still is, an important part of Warrington's makeup. In 1757, Warrington Academy, the Athens of the North, was established at Bridge Foot; the National School was started by Rector Powys on Church Street in 1834 and Warrington Technical School opened in 1902 on Palmyra Square South, this being the forerunner of Warrington Collegiate, which was completely rebuilt for the 21st century on its Winwick Road site and opened in September 2006. The town library and museum on the corner of Bold Street and Museum Street was designed by John Dobson, a Tyneside architect in the mid 1800s. It was the first one in the country to be supported by the rates, the local tax-raising system in place at the time. As the railways came into existence, Warrington became a major player in the transportation of goods and people from north to south and east to west.

The first railway in the town was the Warrington and Newton Railway, opened on 25 July 1831, which ran from the Three Pigeons hotel on Tanners Lane to Newton Junction (now Earlestown), whilst the Grand Junction Railway ran from Birmingham to Warrington Bank Quay from 1837. The Cheshire Lines Committee was formed from existing railways in 1865 and its route crossed Warrington Central from 1873. Nowadays, the main West Coast Mainline travels via the town from London to Glasgow through Warrington Bank Quay, also supporting cross-country journeys from the south west (Devon and Cornwall) to the north east (Newcastle and Edinburgh), with the Trans-Pennine route from Liverpool to Yorkshire and the North East and the Midlands running via Warrington Central. See Making Tracks for more on the railways. The town's parliamentary progress started out with borough status in 1832, becoming a corporate borough in 1847. The Mersey became the borough boundary in St Austin's Ward as a result of the Borough Extension Act, whilst in 1890 the town was divided into nine wards for municipal purposes.

Its status was raised to County Borough in 1900. From 1974 the political boundaries were changed and Warrington came under the administration of Cheshire County Council. In 1998 Warrington became a Unitary Authority and is currently hoping for city status. Burtonwood Air Base in the west of the town played a vital role in Britain's efforts during the Second World War and afterwards during the Berlin Airlift. The RAF station was taken over by the Americans as a repair and refuelling depot. Nowadays, the M62 motorway is built on part of the old runway, and the site is now being redeveloped for housing and employment. Steeplejack and TV personality, the late Fred Dibnah from Bolton, was given the task of pulling down the old control tower. In the south of the town there was an airfield at Stretton and RAF Padgate in the east. See RAF Burtonwood for more.

Public transport began in the tramway era between 1902 and 1935 and the modern Network Warrington fleet contains over 100 vehicles, many using new fuel-efficient eco-friendly engines with video recording and Real Time Passenger Information via satellite. See On The Buses for more. The town's rugby league team used to be known as "The Wire" - it still is if you ask many of the fans - but since the rugby Super League set up in 1996, they are now known as Warrington Wolves. No longer playing at Wilderspool, a brand new ï¿½12 million stadium on the site of the former Tetley Walker brewery at Winwick Road became their new home in 2004. See Warrington Wolves for a history of the club. In fact, sport is a major pastime for many of the townsfolk. Warrington Town Football Club (who have played at Wembley) are based in Latchford, one of the cricket clubs is at Walton - another is at Grappenhall and there is a third in Appleton, Warrington Golf Club is in Appleton and tennis facilities are available at Birchwood and Sankey.

The town's premier athletics track is at Victoria Park, the home of Warrington Athletics Club, who use a synthetic 8-lane circuit which was installed in 1998. The Park also features a skateboard facility, football and rugby pitches, as well as the gentler game of crown green bowls. Nearby, Warrington Rowing Club are based at Howley on the River Mersey. One of the saddest events in the town's recent history was the IRA bomb outside McDonalds in Bridge Street on 20 March 1993 when Johnathan Ball, aged three, and Tim Parry, aged 12, lost their lives in the atrocity. The River of Life street scene and sculpture on Bridge Street is a memorial for the two boys. The terror followed a failed plot to blow up the gas works on Winwick Road a few weeks earlier. In Old Hall, the Peace Centre was built to encourage children from all over the world to meet up and share their cultures. It opened on the seventh anniversary of the boys' deaths in 2000, and was renamed the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation .

Arts and entertainment takes place at the Parr Hall (opened in 1895) and the Pyramid Arts Centre (opened 2002), both on Palmyra Square South. Spectrum arena was an entertainment venue in Birchwood during the 1980s, which featured live snooker on ITV and live basketball on Channel 4, but is now the base for a national bookmaker. Relaxation and recreation are available in the many parks, gardens and nature reserves around the town. Risley Moss and Birchwood Forest Park are built on the old munitions factory site in east Warrington. Walton Hall Gardens, once the home of the Greenall's brewing family, is in the south of the town, while Sankey Valley Park is in the west. Old farmland, industrial areas and disused railway lines have been put to excellent use as open green spaces for the benefit of all. See Warrington Green for more details. The Trans Pennine Trail cuts right through the heart of Warrington, and the waterways in the town are wonderful places to catch up on some of the industrial history, or simply to relax. See On The Waterfront for a history of the waterways.

You can pick up leaflets about all the places mentioned from the town's Information Centres, or download them from the Warrington Borough Council website . The only cinema in the town is in the out-of-town-centre district of Westbrook, but the planned revamp of the market and Bridge Street areas of town, due to start in 2013, will include a cinema in the town centre once more. An earlier scheme on Winwick Street called the Wire Works, which was approved by the government in 2007, should also have included a cinema, but the recession took hold and the plan was scrapped. The Wire Works would have been a mixed-use development of residential apartments, cinema, hotel, restaurants and gymnasium, which was due to start in late 2008. Mr Smiths nightclub was housed in the old Ritz/ABC cinema at Bridge Foot until it closed down in 2006, but then reopened under a new name, Synergy in 2008, and later became Halo . A group called Theatre 4 Warrington held a publicity campaign to open it as a theatre, as it had been many years earlier.

The famous Hollywood comedy duo Laurel and Hardy visited the venue when they toured the UK in 1952. Click here for the Theatre 4 Warrington web presence on MySpace. Other entertainment in the town includes a bowling alley at Winwick Quay (LA Bowl) and go-carting at Arpley. The town's nightclub scene is located around Bridge Street, Friars Gate, Barbauld Street and Rylands Street. For the steady gambler there is a large bingo hall built on the land once occupied by the large Armitage & Rigby Cotton Mill off Scotland Road. Walking Day is an annual event which began in the 1830s to entice people away from the Newton Races. It is a religious walk of witness by the churches of the town. See Memory Lane for more. Shoppers are catered for at Warrington Market, which has been running continuously for over 750 years, Cockhedge Shopping Park and the newly extended Golden Square shopping centre. The main town centre streets of Church Street, Mersey Street, Bold Street, Sankey Street, Bridge Street, Buttermarket Street, Horsemarket Street, Cairo Street and Rylands Street also cater for shoppers.

A new state-of-the-art bus station, Warrington Interchange, complements the Golden Square and opened in 2006. During 2007, Warrington Borough Council profiled this website by displaying some of my photographs of the bus stations in the entrance of the Interchange. See On the Buses and Peter's Gallery for those images. Out-of-town shopping includes Gemini Retail Park in the west and Birchwood Shopping Centre in the east. Elsewhere, the villages of Culcheth in the east and Stockton Heath and Lymm in the south, provide many opportunities for shoppers. A market takes place in Lymm every Thursday. Nowadays, due to its central location on three motorway networks, M6, M56 and M62, and two major rail routes, the West Coast Mainline and Trans-Pennine route, with links to the region's two international airports at Manchester and Liverpool, Warrington has once again become an important place for business. Swedish furniture company Ikea made Warrington their first UK location, at Gemini Retail Park mentioned earlier. In fact, they invented the flat-pack culture we all love (or hate!) back in 1956.

One of the draughtsmen at the company took the legs off a table to get it into his car. He told his bosses and the rest is history. Close to Gemini is Chapelford Urban Village, a new area in west Warrington with 2,000 new houses built there in the early part of the 21st century. Later, the Omega Business Park will begin in the same area. Taking about 18 years to complete, Omega is a ï¿½1 billion redevelopment on the land formerly occupied by Burtonwood Air Base, which will attract businesses, housing and employment. Many famous visitors have graced our pavements, including authors Daniel Defoe and Charles Dickens. Members of Royalty to visit include the Queen (who officially opened the original Golden Square shopping centre in 1979), Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1984 and the Queen Mother in her younger days. More recently the Earl and Countess of Wessex have visited, as well as Princess Anne, The Princess Royal, in 2006. TV and radio presenter Chris Evans was born here, as were actor Pete Postlethwaite and singer Kerry McFadden (nee Katona).

Former Prime Minister John Major paid us a visit in June 2006. See Warrington People for more on the town's famous. The three main newspapers in the town are South Warrington News , Warrington-Worldwide and the Warrington Guardian . South Warrington News publish a monthly newspaper, which started out in 1993 as Shopfront, also available online in PDF format. Warrington-Worldwide is an online daily newspaper owned by Orbit News, which also publishes 5 free monthly magazines ( Warrington-Worldwide , Lymm Life, Village Life, Culcheth Life and Frodsham Life ). It now operates warrington.tv , which broadcasts online video news of local events. Warrington-Worldwide started out as Business Connections in April, 1999. See their website for further details. Warrington has TWO radio stations: Radio Warrington started out as Radio WORM (Warrington's Online Radio Media) in 2007 and broadcasts 24 hours a day on the internet. News is provided by Warrington-Worldwide . My friend DJKenny has his own website with photos of Warrington.

He also has his own twice-weekly radio show on Radio Warrington (Tuesday evening 8-10 p.m. and Saturday evening 6-10 p.m.) 107.2 Wire FM broadcasts music news and views 24 hours a day, but is now based in Wigan. it broadcasts to its catchment area of Warrington, Runcorn and Widnes. It began broadcasting on 1 September 1998 and is owned by UTV. Warrington is twinned with four cities: Hilden, Germany The Rugby World Cup leaves rugby league fans with mixed emotions | Sport | The Guardian Guardian Sport Network The Rugby World Cup leaves rugby league fans with mixed emotions Plus: Spain could join Tonga at the Rugby League World Cup in 2017; London is producing internationals; and a legend of the game should be recognised Wednesday 21 October 2015 05.15 EDT Last modified on Monday 4 April 2016 07.58 EDT Share on Messenger Close Rugby league fans have been through the mixer over the last month as the Rugby World Cup has evolved.

We’ve felt amusement ( when hubristic England lost to Wales ), elation (enjoying some vastly more entertaining play-off matches than several of the dreary higher profile group games), and smugness (when Leeds and Wigan put on a magnificent Grand Final while England exited their tournament across town in a festival of flagellation ). Last weekend, we could only applaud the glorious Rugby World Cup quarter-finals and sneak in the occasional comment along the lines of “that was rugby league, you know” as the Europeans tumbled . How much credit league can take for the thrilling open rugby played by New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and, latterly, Argentina is open for debate but there is certainly some influence in the southern hemisphere. The NRL’s entertainment factor forced Super Rugby to open up or give up on the commercial battle. That in turn has seen the southern hemisphere national teams appreciate that you can throw the ball around, run lethal lines, put on nifty footwork, and score tries (as well as kicking goals) to rack up heaps of points. The number of former league players in the tournament is small but not insignificant.

Sonny Bill Williams, now 30, made a delightful cameo appearance for the All Blacks on Saturday night; ex Souths and Roosters star Craig Wing helped Japan win hearts and games as he closes in on his 36th birthday; and Israel Folau will no doubt play as major role for Australia. Oh, and there was Sam Burgess, Owen Farrell and George Ford for England, and former Manly, Cronulla and Wigan loose forward Phil Bailey coached the USA’s defence in four straight defeats. Since full-time professionalism arrived in the mid-1990s, rugby union’s World Cup has been almost as predictable as the rugby league version. In the past five union tournaments, Australia, New Zealand and France have reached the semi-finals four times, with South Africa at three. If they don’t make it, Argentina, England and Wales do. All three Rugby League World Cup in the full-time era (2004 was replaced by a Tri-Nations and European Cup) have been Kangaroos v Kiwis finals after New Zealand have beaten England in the semis and the Aussies have seen off heroic Wales (2000) or swatted away overwhelmed Fiji (the last two). Hardly an open field.

So can France break the mould in 2017? France should be far more competitive after having a Super League franchise for a decade, and now having French talent scattered throughout the top flight. The vast majority of Richard Agar’s squad are full-time and that showed last Saturday when they pulled away from Ireland after a tight first-half to win 31-14. They already have one of the game’s most in-demand talents in Morgan Escare, while John Boudebza, Mikael Simon, Kevin Larroyer and Gadwin Springer are all playing Super League away from the comforts of Perpignan. By the next World Cup, Theo Fages should have been leading St Helens around the park for two seasons and Ben Garcia could have been an NRL star for Penrith. Given that and a decent draw, Les Chanticleers should be semi-final contenders. We will see how far they have come on Saturday when France play England at Leigh . Or rather you won’t see it unless you are there. So far there is no broadcast partner in place, although intriguingly, Premier Sports have kept Saturday afternoon free. Watch that space. Clubcall: Leeds Rhinos The RFL are finally getting the hang of this marketing lark.

The treble winners will kick-start Super League XXI at home in the televised season-opener as Leeds host Warrington on Thursday 4 February. It is one of the earliest ever starts to the season and with Wigan v Catalans the following night, let’s hope their undersoil heating is working. One of the Grand Final rematches will be on the Magic Weekend as we all head back to Newcastle. My hotel room is already booked. Just as thoughts head to next season, Leeds have to finish this one: they face the Kiwis at Headingley on Friday night in a farewell game for Kevin Sinfield and Kylie Leuluai. Jamie Peacock won’t be playing – he is replaced (curiously) by Adrian Morley, 15 years after he last played for the Rhinos. Leeds are expecting a record-breaking crowd of nearly 20,000. Now that’s marketing. Morley prepared for the challenge by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (for the Steve Prescott Foundation) and playing a game of league at base camp with Lee Briers, refereed by Robert Hicks. As you do.

Foreign quota We now know that Tonga will be going to the World Cup, they could be joined by rookies Spain, but Malta, Greece and the Cook Islands won’t be there. An NRL-strength Tonga saw off the Cooks last weekend in Campbelltown despite a try from Wigan’s Anthony Gelling for the Kukis. Spain hammered Greece in Athens to claim the Euro C title, promotion to Euro B, and games against either Wales or Ireland, and Serbia or Russia in the European qualifiers next autumn. Italy are the other contender as three places are up for grabs. By the end of October we will know whether Lebanon or South Africa are through too, as they play a two-legged affair near Pretoria, starting on Sunday. And in November, the USA, Canada and Jamaica play the America qualifying tournament in Florida. With Canada having retained the Colonial Cup on Sunday with a 70-56 aggregate win over the US, they will be favourites. But the US coach is on something of a roll. His name? Brian McDermott esquire.

Goal-line drop-out If anyone still questions the RFL’s investment in London regional development officers in the 2000s, take a look at the line-ups from last weekend’s European Championships. By my reckoning, London & The South RL produced six players. In their 16-18 defeat to Wales, Scotland fielded debutant Alex Walker (from East Herts), former Medway Dragon now Warrington Wolf Richard Harris (no, not Arthur Machin), currently clubless centre Harvey Burnett (Kingston-upon-Thames), and Bradford-bound Oscar Thomas (High Wycombe), who got his first international try. Michael Channing (Surrey) made his return to the Wales ranks, while Ireland gave a first cap to half-back Joe Keyes (born in Enfield, brought up in Essex) in Albi. All of them came through the London Broncos academy pathway, while current Broncos Elliott Kear and Rhys Williams (Wales), Ben Hellewell (Scotland), and William Barthau (France) also played. A waste of time and money? I think not.

Fifth and last Talking of the capital, visiting Milwall FC’s academy training ground at Eltham College last week passed Grove Park barracks and doffed my metaphorical cap to one of our game’s immortals. Harold Wagstaff was billeted at Grove Park with four Huddersfield team-mates, including the mighty Albert Rosenfeld, in 1916. They had all clearly been recruited by the Army Service Corps for their rugby ingenuity. Despite having never even seen rugby union before, Wagstaff starred for the Army, scoring the winning try in the North’s win over the South at Headingley. The ASC were posted to Palestine the next season but Wagstaff returned in one piece to recommence his glorious playing career. There should be a plaque.

Follow No Helmets Required on Twitter and Facebook Super League clubs set up 2016 with intriguing results in festive friendlies | Sport | The Guardian Guardian Sport Network Super League clubs set up 2016 with intriguing results in festive friendlies Reigning champions Leeds were beaten at home by Wakefield; Warrington swatted aside Widnes; and Ryan Hampshire shone on his Castleford debut Monday 4 January 2016 07.42 EST Last modified on Monday 10 October 2016 21.40 EDT Close New kids on the Super League block Super League XXI kicks off next month and half of the contestants have been in action over the last week. Most left out their international stars, opting to mix and match their senior players with rising talent from the youth ranks as the pre-season friendlies kicked off (strangely referred to as “warm-up matches” by the RFL and by that annoying Australianism “trials” by too many Brits).

Among the top flight line-ups were plenty of names new to Super League spectators, some of them familiar to Premier Sports’ NRL viewers and plenty of youthful unknowns, a select few of whom will no doubt emerge as future stars as 2016 unfolds. Champions Leeds fielded a strong-looking XIII, including 10 of their Grand Final team, and yet were surprisingly beaten 14-6 at home by wooden-spoonists Wakefield in a Watersplash Boxing Day derby. Trinity fans may have been alarmed to see Cameron Smith on the Leeds’ team-sheet but it turns out this one is the Rhinos’ wunderkind, the England youth captain who completed a notable achievement, leaping from the Under-16s to the first team without playing an Under-19s match! Leeds Rhinos secure signing of Brett Ferres from Huddersfield Giants Read more Smith and 18-year-old centre Ryan Jones – playing against his hometown club – were among four young subs to make late appearances, watched by 11,000 at Headingley Baths. Also making their Leeds debuts in the monsoon were former Australia prop Keith Galloway and the magically named Aussie hooker Beau Falloon.

Super League newcomer Tinirau Arona impressed for Wakefield. The new signing from Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks looked at home immediately, despite playing in temperatures about 20 degrees lower than what he is used to at this time of year. The versatile, 26-year-old forward, who came through the Roosters’ system under Wakefield boss Brian Smith, is vastly experienced, having made his Cook Islands debut at just 17. Warrington swatted aside a young Widnes side 40-0 on the Sunday after Christmas in front of over 5,000 at Naughton Road, veteran Aussie recruit Kurt Gidley running the show from stand-off, where he may have to fill in for the injured Stefan Ratchford. Warrington started with a far more experienced side than Widnes and led 30-0 at the break, before introducing a dozen youngsters off the bench. Among them was the intriguing case of Richard Harris. A centre or full-back, he learned the game with his local side Medway Dragons in Gillingham, spent several years with London Broncos and captained Scotland Under-19s.

Having fallen out with the Broncos he managed to get an opportunity at Warrington last year and did well enough for the Wolves Under-19s to secure a new contract. He also made his full Scotland debut in last autumn’s European Championship campaign, appearing in all three internationals despite having never played a senior game of club rugby. The state of rugby league in 2015 Read more Among the new faces for Widnes were former Canterbury Bulldog Corey Thompson, the Indigenous Australian who came through the local scene in Brisbane before making the NRL in Belmore. He was replaced at full-back after 25 minutes by England Academy full-back Olly Ashall, who makes the fresh-faced Tom Briscoe look like Jamie Peacock. Local 20-year-old twins Jay and Teddy Chapelhow (who both play tennis for Cheshire, by the way) impressed coach Denis Betts on their first-team debuts. It could cause chaos in the commentary box if those two play regularly together.

Although Ryan Hampshire, their loan signing from Wigan, grabbed the headlines on his Castleford debut by kicking all seven goal attempts in a 42-28 win over Featherstone, he was partnered in the halves by local product Tom Holmes in Luke Gale’s role. Teenage full-back Ash Robson drew plaudits galore and debutant Greg Minikin started at centre and scored a try. Minikin was a stand-out performer in League 1 last season, having progressed through the ranks at York City Knights, and is the latest low-profile recruit Castleford coach Daryl Powell hopes to polish into a Super League diamond. Another new Tiger was Jy Hitchcox, the 26-year-old Aussie backliner having impressed for Featherstone Rovers last year after bouncing around the lower grades with three NRL clubs, managing just a handful of appearances for Wests Tigers. Leeds play again at Hunslet on Friday night, before heading off to Florida as usual; Widnes return to see their new friends in Newcastle where they will play the Thunder on Saturday, the day Catalans’ stars return to action against Chevaliers Cathares – the region rep side – at Carcassonne.

Sunday sees the latest version of Salford debut at Rochdale; Huddersfield head under the M62 to play neighbours Halifax; and Wakefield play again at Featherstone. That just leaves Wigan, St Helens, Hull KR and Hull, none of whom will emerge from their winter hibernation until 17 January. Hull’s run-out at York was unsurprisingly washed out yesterday and they must wait a fortnight until going to Doncaster, on the same day Saints host Dewsbury, Wigan go down the road to Leigh, and the Robins welcome Huddersfield to Craven Park, just three weeks before the big kick-off. They are cutting it fine. Foreign quota While Catalans’ stellar new signings (including Queensland goliath Dave Taylor, who has preposterously declared a sudden desire to play for England) are preparing for their first run out, their shadow squad Saint Esteve-XIII Catalan suffered a shock defeat last weekend at resurgent Avignon Bisons, while FC Lézignan Corbières XIII stunned previously unbeaten AS Carcassonne 32-20 at the walled city.

That enabled Limoux, with a 60-point spanking of Toulouse Broncos, to replace ASC at the top of Elite 1. All of which means, after 13 rounds, there are now four points separating the top four, although Limoux have one game in hand on third-place Lézignan and Saint Esteve in fourth, and ASC have two. The fight for the top-three play-off looks like going all the way to the end of the regular 16-round season on Valentine’s Day. Clubcall: Racing Club Albi Christmas used to be a manically busy period for professional rugby league players both here and across the channel. On Christmas Day 1953, Albi hosted the American All Stars at Stade Maurice Rigaud, which is now a smart little football ground a couple of minutes nearer town than the municipal rugby stadium where RC Albi now play. Albi squeezed home, 11-5, but Mike Dimitro’s heroic American college boys were feted as they celebrated Christmas that night in Toulouse-Lautrec’s attractive medieval hometown by the raging river Tarn. Read far more about their antics in the book from which this blog was born, No Helmets Required .

Six decades on, Albi are heading back towards the upper echelons of French rugby league at last. Newly promoted, they are the surprise package in Elite 1 this season, lying sixth having won half of their dozen games with a couple of bonus points to boot. On Saturday night they host Catalan villagers Palau Broncos, who are a place behind them having seemingly adjusted to life in the top flight during their second season there. With Albi’s Under-20s leading the national league, Toulouse Olympique going full-time in League 1 and neighbours RC Lescure-Arthès XIII romping towards the Elite 2 title, league is on the up in the region. Goal-line drop-out Southern league fans, rejoice and be merry! For the RFL confirmed at the latest All-Party Parliamentary Rugby League Group meeting that they intend to stage three major events in London every year. This year they will be the Challenge Cup final, a Wigan Warriors on the road game (with far more RFL support than the last one had), and an England international.

The latter could yet be part of a Four Nations double-header at the Olympic Stadium but that is proving harder to tie up than envisaged with West Ham playing hardball with the venue management. With potential venues at Hull, Wigan, Huddersfield and Hearts, as well as West Ham, all are either owned or shared with football clubs, negotiations are painfully slow. It is now a whole year since Blake Solly told me that they hoped to confirm details imminently. In 2017, with England down under in the World Cup, there could even be a Super League double-header in the capital, based on rugby union’s Twickenham double-header season launch which features four south-east clubs. Nobody mentioned a State of Origin game or an NRL fixture coming to Wembley but it is not impossible, and don’t be surprised if the Magic event pitches up in London eventually. Fifth and last Well, my cold turkey kicked in before the real turkey was even in the oven. Around Christmas Eve I started to have that uncomfortable feeling, that nagging sensation that something was missing. Then it dawned on me: it had been a month since I had seen any rugby league. I was suffering withdrawal symptoms.

Luckily Premier Sports showed a few NRL repeats and there were the festive friendlies to read about. Where I live there is no adult rugby league in bleak mid-winter, and only the Hull & District and Pennine leagues provide any elsewhere. Fans are so keen to see some action that four-figure gates are not unheard of at amateur matches. I am still yet to hear a convincing reason why the RFL forced (and they did force) almost every amateur team in the country to switch to “summer”. It hasn’t worked. As “amateur” means “for the love of it”, why can’t folk have the game they love whenever they want? Follow No Helmets Required on Twitter and Facebook Super League Grand Final 2013: Warrington Wolves 16 Wigan Warriors 30: match report - Telegraph Rugby League Super League Grand Final 2013: Warrington Wolves 16 Wigan Warriors 30: match report Read a full match report of the Super League Grand Final between Warrington Wolves and Wigan Warriors at Old Trafford on Saturday Oct 5 2013.

Go on son: Wigan's Josh Charnley (centre) scores his sides third try at Old Trafford Photo: ACTION IMAGES By Jonathan Liew , at Old Trafford 8:12PM BST 05 Oct 2013 Follow Perhaps, finally, we have a Wigan side fit to stand comparison with the very best. In a thrilling game under the Old Trafford lights, they became only the third team in the Super League era to complete the double, their 30-16 grand final win over Warrington following victory in the Challenge Cup final in August. The plaudits will surely go to Sam Tomkins, the departing star who offered up a consummate swansong. But the glory will rightly be shared amongst all 17, as well as coach Shaun Wane, the architect of a quite stunning second-half comeback. The great Wigan side of the 1990s may have their legend embellished in silver, their startling run of success probably never to be matched again. But this exciting young side are worth celebrating in their own right: a proud triumph of coaching, scouting and team spirit.

Nine of the squad yesterday were born within 10 miles of Wigan; 11 came through the club’s academy. Their average age of 25 points to a bright future, even if Tomkins and others are shortly to depart the scene. A former Warrington fan who once owned a Jonathan Davies replica shirt and would used to spend his childhood Sunday afternoons watching from the sidelines at Wilderspool, for Tomkins this was an especially poignant triumph. He will be plying his trade on the other side of the world next season, having already signed for New Zealand Warriors for a world-record fee. Pat Richards and Lee Mossop were also playing their last matches. This was a more than fitting send-off. “It’s unbelievable,” said Tomkins, as Wigan celebrated their third Super League title with a lap of honour. “This is what we dreamt of. There are a few of us leaving, we are a really tight group, and the players spoke about a fairytale ending. This was it.” But the sport’s grinning poster-boy still had one big performance left in cherry-and-white.

There was a fleet-footed swagger to Tomkins last night, the strut of a player who not only looks good on his feet, but knows it too. Together with the immense Mike McIlorum and the inspired Blake Green, who got up from an early battering to claim the Harry Sutherland Trophy for man of the match, they inspired one of the great grand final reverses. Related Articles England name Burgess trio in squad 01 Oct 2013 “We are a really tight group,” Tomkins said, “and we knew if we stuck to our game plan, we would come back into it.” “That’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life,” said Green. “No-one thought we could win the double. Everyone wrote us off.” You look for turning points in a match like this, and the injury to Warrington’s Joel Monaghan just before half-time stands out as perhaps the defining one. The Australian was stretchered off with concussion just before half-time, after a collision with Pat Richards left him prone on the turf for around seven minutes. At the time, Warrington were 16-2 up.

Almost immediately after the restart, centre Darrell Goulding, who had enjoyed a wretched game to that point, gathered Tomkins’ pass in the corner and scored. Far from going into the break on a high, Warrington went in deflated. They were not to score another point. Warrington coach Tony Smith refused to use the injury to Monaghan, or the second-half ankle injury to Stefan Ratchford, as an excuse for defeat. But the stretching of their resources, allied to Wigan’s greater youth and energy, proved more and more telling as the match progressed. Wigan emerged for the second half with renewed vigour and discipline, narrowing the gap to just four points after McIlorum broke free of the clutches of Lee Briers to score. McIlorum’s next intervention was almost as important, a brilliant tap-tackle on Simon Grix that led, seconds later, to Josh Charnley going over after scooping up Goulding’s grubbing kick. With 14 minutes to go, Green ran straight through a chasm in the Warrington defence to give Wigan a two-score cushion. Warrington were in pieces.

“In the second half, field position hurt us more than anything,” said Smith. “We still had good personnel there, but it was just having to defend our own line. From 10 metres out, Wigan are very good. Our discipline was an issue, big time. We got smashed. Seven-two in terms of penalties conceded in the second half. Wigan deserved to win on the back of that.” So the 58-year wait for a league title continues for Warrington. This was a second grand final defeat in succession, after the boot of Leeds’s Kevin Sinfield despatched them 12 months ago, and a cruel final twist to the Wolves career of Adrian Morley. The 36-year-old, the oldest player ever to appear in a grand final, was playing his last game too before moving to Salford, his crestfallen expression at full-time was a reminder that not everybody gets their fairytale ending. Match details Warrington: Ratchford, Riley, Bridge, Atkins, J Monaghan, Briers, Myler; Wood, Higham, Hill, Westwood, Grix, Harrison. Interchange: Morley, M Monaghan, Carvell, Cooper.

Wigan: S Tomkins, Charnley, Goulding, Thornley, Richards, Green, Smith; Dudson, McIlorum, Mossop, Hansen, Farrell, O’Loughlin. Interchange: Hughes, Flower, Taylor, Crosby. Referee: R Silverwood (Mirfield).

Question: In Rugby, what did Warrington add to their name in the 1990's?
Answer: Wolves